Irregular Migration and Geopolitical Stigma in the Mediterranean: A Bourdieusian Field and Capital Approach to the Algerian Case.

Abstract

This article explores Algerian irregular migration by putting human experiences at the center. It connects the journeys of harraga — young people who risk their lives in small boats toward Europe — with the quieter but far more protected movements of Spanish workers and firms who travel south to work in western Algeria. It asks why, in the same Mediterranean space, some bodies are treated as “illegal” and deportable while others are welcomed as experts and partners. To answer this, the article introduces the idea of “migration stigma regimes” to describe how laws, borders, and public narratives work together to mark certain people as dangerous, expendable, or undeserving of rights. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capital, habitus, and symbolic violence, the analysis shows how these regimes shape not only policies and statistics, but also self‑image, hope, and dignity. Drawing on research on harraga, changes in work and migration in Algeria, and the mobility of Spanish workers, the article argues that the Mediterranean has become an unequal “migration field” in which chances for safe movement are distributed very unevenly. In this light, irregular migration appears less as an irrational gamble than as a desperate, strategic attempt to claim a livable future.